The combination of oil and vinegar, two immiscible liquids, is the basis of many salad dressings. Liquid and solid spices are combined with oil and vinegar to make an endless variety of salad dressings. When immiscible liquids and insoluble solids are combined, constant mixing is needed to keep the liquids from separating into layers and solids from settling to the bottom. An important physical property that affects mixing and pouring of salad dressings is the viscosity of the oil and this varies considerably among oils, particularly when cooled as often is desirable for preservation of the salad dressing.
Mixing the ingredients of salad dressings has usually been by shaking or stirring. The simplest technique is the manual stirring of a salad dressing in a bowl with a utensil and pouring the contents from the bowl onto the salad without any mechanism for controlling the flow rate. The advanced techniques use an electrically powered motor for mixing and like the simplest technique have no mechanism to control the rate of outflow.
There are two general methods of adding salad dressing to a salad. The first method is to add the entire amount of prepared dressing to the salad, a method that insures that the proportions of the ingredients are as intended, but has the disadvantage of needing to prepare a dressing for each salad or using the entire bottle of commercial dressing. This method is practical for large salads that are entirely consumed at one meal, but is impractical for small or individual salads.
The second method is to pour a sample of the prepared dressing onto a salad. This method is ideal for small to medium sized salads where pouring the entire bottle of dressing would be excessive and not economical. Pouring multiple samples of the dressing has the convenience of using a prepared dressing over an extended period of time.
Many examples of bottled dressings exist on shelves in grocery stores, some with a wide-open spout and others with a smaller outflow channel. The cap that closes the container can be a flip-top, a screw top, or a snap-on design. The dispensers with a smaller outflow channel have a perforation in a plate beneath the cap. A patented example of a wide-open dispensing container is the invention of Grosse, U.S. Pat. No. 5,662,249, September 1997, ALL IN ONE MEASURE/FUNNEL/POUR/MIX/SHAKE CONTAINER. A variation of this type is the invention of Boice, U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,614, March 1982, SALAD DRESSING BOTTLE AND TOP STOPPER WITH INDIVIDUAL SERVER. Boice's invention consists of a shaker bottle with a removable individual serving dispensing cup inside the bottle. By tilting the bottle and shaking the contents, a proper distribution of salad dressing ingredients enter the individual serving cup. The cup is then removed and the contents poured over the individual salad. The process is repeated for each individual salad.
A motorized version of the wide-open dispenser is the Bonjour Salad Chef. It consists of a motorized emulsification disc that is inserted into the open top of the carafe. After mixing, the mixer is removed prior to pouring. The mixer must be re-inserted into the carafe each time mixing is needed. There is no mechanism to regulate the flow rate during dispensing. Another motorized mixer with a wide-open top is the Personal Power Mixer (Ontel Corp., Fairfield, N.J.). The Personal Power Mixer is designed to mix a variety of mixtures including salad dressing. This mixer also has no mechanism to regulate the flow rate during dispensing. The whisk at the bottom of the mixing chamber is patented: Khubani, U.S. Pat. No. D391,806, March 1998, WHISK FOR A MIXER.
One deficiency of prior technologies is the difficulty maintaining a uniform dispersion of the mixture in the mixing chamber during pouring. This is due to the time-dependent separation of the components. In the time it takes to remove the cap or to remove the power mixer, as in the case of the Bonjour Salad Chef, the mixture begins to separate into layers and the solid matter begins to settle to the bottom. The option is to pour quickly before the mixture separates into components or to pour slowly and accept a poorly mixed sample. When pouring quickly there is the risk of pouring an excessive amount of dressing. When pouring slowly, the mixture is not uniformly dispersed and the first samples contain an excessive amount of oil and the residual mixture in the dispenser has a greater proportion of vinegar than initially. As more samples are poured, the residual mixture becomes more disproportionate. No one sample is representative of the initial desired mixture and this is a serious deficiency of prior technologies.
Another deficiency of prior technologies is the poor control of the flow rate during pouring. Control of outflow has been limited to (1) varying the angle of pouring and (2) decreasing the diameter of the outflow channel. Controlling the flow by the angle of tilt is a dynamic process for the angle of tilt for any given flow rate changes as the dispenser empties. Presetting the angle has not been possible and the process is one of trial and error. Reducing the diameter of the outflow channel does reduce the flow rate but does not solve the problem of uncontrolled outflow. The dispensers with a small outflow channel require squeezing or shaking or a combination of squeezing and shaking for dispensing and the quantity ejected with each maneuver is variable and unpredictable, another trial and error process
The dispensers having a reduced outflow diameter have the unique disadvantage of accommodating a limited variety of salad dressings. This is because the diameter of the outflow channel is designed for a specific salad dressing, depending upon the viscosity of the dressing and the size of the solid particles.
The deficiencies of U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,614 by Boice are (1) the fixed volume of the serving cup which restricts the samples to one size, a volume that may be too large or too small for the salad, (2) the entire volume of the serving cup must be dispensed because there is no method provided to mix the contents of the serving cup after it is removed from the bottle, (3) the multiple steps consisting of shaking, tilting to fill the serving cup, uncapping, removing the serving cup, pouring, replacing the serving cup, and recapping must be repeated for each sample, (4) the messiness of salad dressing dripping from the serving cup as it is removed from the bottle and transported to the salad, and (5) the possible contamination of the serving cup each time it is removed from the bottle and replaced.
The deficiencies of The Personal Power Mixer, the prior art illustrated in FIG. 1, are (1) the wide open container has no mechanism to control outflow, (2) there is no automatic switch to activate mixing during pouring, (3) the whisk is not of sufficient height to quickly mix the top portion when the chamber is filled with a viscous salad dressing, and (4) all surfaces in contact with food particles are not submersible for cleaning because the rotor is attached to the motor shaft of the base.
My invention overcomes the deficiencies of prior art by automatically initiating mixing upon pouring, mixing the entire contents to a uniform dispersion prior to the onset of outflow, having an outflow channel of sufficient diameter for the passage of solid spices, allowing adjustment of flow rate during dispensing, and having all parts that come in contact with food submersible for cleaning. With my invention, it is now possible to dispense representative samples of a wide variety of salad dressing in the quantity desired.